RENTON .com
REPORTER
A DIVISION OF SOUND PUBLISHING
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 16/11
SCORE | Partner cities mark opening of new regional jail [10]
Honoring her father | Daughter is walking in the 2011 Seattle Brain Cancer Walk to raise REPORTER NEWSLINE 425.255.3484 money in her father’s memory [3]
Hazen ready to go | Highlanders get off to a strong start by tying Kennedy Catholic 1-1 [13]
County budget cuts to take toll on snow removal, road maintenance BY DEAN A. RADFORD dradford@rentonreporter.com
Mark Brands, left, with Partner SiteWorkshops landscape architecture, outlines the future site of the Renton downtown library branch to Karen Boswell, center, and Edythe Gandy, right, Tuesday evening. CHARLES CORTES, Renton Reporter
Ideas flow for new library BY TRACEY COMPTON tcompton@rentonreporter.com
The designers of the new downtown Renton library got an earful Tuesday night about the look, feel and location of the library as they start the design process. No formal ideas have been crafted yet by the design team, but the designers had easels covered with ideas and designs to spur this initial public discussion. “I want a beautiful (library), a jewel like the Mercer Island Library or the North Bend Library. Those are beautiful buildings,” said Helen Stanwell
of Renton. More than 100 people attended the open house at the Renton Pavilion Event Center, where King County Library System staff, City of Renton officials and the design team from the architectural firm, Miller Hull Partnership, answered their questions and wrote down “So i want to see it their ideas. Their senti- through and try and ments ranged get my view heard from wanting because I don’t feel they’ve been heard to leave the library where to date.” Renee Stern it is, over the Cedar River, to making the new location more like European cities with the new library integrated into a more active downtown. Concerned Renton residents, City Council candidates and even protesters were drawn to the meeting. KCLS Director Bill Ptacek opened
the meeting with general comments about KCLS’s role in developing new libraries in Renton and surrounding areas. He was quickly peppered with questions about the site location chosen for the new downtown library. “We’re not going to get into all that,” he said, shutting down the opportunity for a group discussion. Instead, Ptacek directed attendees to stations where their could have their questions answered individually. Protesting at the meeting were Beatrice Clark and Robert McCurry, of Renton, who held signs calling out KCLS for racial profiling and racism in their libraries. “It happened to me personally,” said Clark. “It effects me and black people in general what has happened.” Clark declined to give further details, saying she was just at the [ more LIBRARY page 4 ]
[ more ROADS page 11]
Food bank shelves still need restocking BY DEAN A. RADFORD dradford@rentonreporter.com
Food is coming into the Salvation Army Renton Rotary Food Bank to fill empty shelves, but more is needed to help feed Renton’s hungry. “We’re getting there, but we’re not out of the woods yet,” Mercedes Elessa, director of social services and the food bank for the Salvation Army, said this week. [ more FOOD page 4 ]
206.949.1696 www.marciemaxwell.com Marcie Maxwell Associate Broker, Realtor & CRS
Lisa Lam
Realtor, CRS, ABR & ASP
520636
Make it Northwest, make it two stories, make it beautiful, the public says of downtown library.
Snow would pile up on the residential streets – including some major ones – in Fairwood, on West Hill and the East Renton Plateau under a county proposal to prioritize the maintenance of its roads. In Fairwood under the plan about 85 percent or about 64 miles of the county roads would receive no snow removal or storm response. On West Hill, those numbers are about 76 percent and about 37 miles. And there are many miles of road in unincorporated areas that the county will maintain only if safety is at What roads are affected? http://tinyurl.com/3ukpa5e risk, meaning they could return to gravel or even close. It’s typical during any major snowstorm that residential streets are typically the last ones to get plowed or sanded, if at all. Those are some of the realities of a proposal county Executive Dow Constantine unveiled Monday to maintain the county’s 1,600 miles of roads, based on traffic volume, public safety and bus service, among other criteria. Those roads are a mix of urban ones in areas close to cities and those that serve the largely rural areas of east King County.